D&D 5E Is Paladine Bahamut? Is Takhisis Tiamat? Fizban's Treasury Might Reveal The Answer!

According to WotC's James Wyatt, Fizban's Treasury of Dragons introduces a new cosmology for dragon gods, where the same beings, including Fizban, echo across various D&D campaign settings with alternate versions of themselves (presumably like Paladine/Bahamut, or Takhisis/Tiamat). Also... the various version can merge into one single form.

Takhisis is the five-headed dragon god of evil from the Dragonlance setting. Paladine is the platinum dragon god of good (and also Fizban's alter-ego).

Additionally, the book will contain psychic gem dragons, with stats for all four age categories of the five varieties (traditionally there are Amethyst, Crystal, Emerald, Sapphire, and Topaz), plus Dragonborn characters based on metallic, chromatic, and gem dragons.

D&D 5E - Check out Fizban's Alternate Cover!

WotC's James Wyatt talked to Polygon about Fizban's Treasury of Dragons, which also revealed the alternate cover, which you can only get from hobby stores. https://www.enworld.org/threads/fizbans-treasury-the-dragon-book-now-has-a-description-and-a-feat.681399/

www.enworld.org

D&D 5E - Fizban's Treasury: The Dragon Book Now Has A Description... And A Feat

Courtesy of Amazon, we now have a description for Fizban's Treasury of Dragons, the October D&D hardcover. The book introduces gem dragons, dragon-themed player options, and plenty of draconic lore! This joins September's The Wild Beyond the Witchlight, and November's Strixhaven: Curriculum of...

www.enworld.org

 

[Maxperson]

About as relevant for my table, although WotC offerings are easier for me to access info and pick ideas.

I get that. I've never felt bound to canon the way some folks are. I run the Forgotten Realms, but as I noted Azoun is still alive, the Spell Plague and Sundering never happened(I draw the line at the Time of Troubles), and spellcasters are relatively rare.

 

[Parmandur]

I get that. I've never felt bound to canon the way some folks are. I run the Forgotten Realms, but as I noted Azoun is still alive, the Spell Plague and Sundering never happened(I draw the line at the Time of Troubles), and spellcasters are relatively rare.

I mix SCAG elements into the 3E FRVS, and it's still the 14th century DR.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Official lore has far more weight and potential to affect other settings under the 2E/5E model of a unified cosmology that all settings belong to than the 3E/4E take of multiple independent cosmologies.

How? How is it affecting anything? Are you being forced to change your game because the books say this one thing? Did this force Keith Baker to write in the Rising of the Last War book "Here is the Eberron cosmology, but don't worry about it and just ignore it because it's now nothing more than a curiosity that is meaningless to Eberron since the cosmology in the DMG takes precedence over everything"?

Nothing in these books that are being written is affecting anything anywhere... except in the minds of that small select band of players who for whatever reason seem to need to have this one Grand Theory of Everything where every single bit of lore ever written is all true and immutable and is one single comprehensive lore "thing". If it's written in a book, then it's real, and we have no say in the matter. Even if we don't like what was written.

But for the other 99.99% of us? We just don't care. Lore in any book does not matter. Because the MOMENT one of our players in one of our games goes out and... kills Drizzt... that Grand Theory no longer applies. In our game, Drizzt is dead. And while other people might scream from the mountaintops "No! He's not dead! He's not! What happens in your world isn't the REAL LORE! The OFFICIAL LORE says he is still alive! Bob Salvatore is still writing books about him! Drizzt lives!!!"... I'll just shrug my shoulders and say "Sure... in THAT PART of the D&D Multiverse, Drizzt Do'Urden is alive. In MY part of the Multiverse, he is worm food."

And there ain't nothing no one can say to change that fact.

 

[dave2008]

Your game and my game are not official. At least not any of the changes we've made to the official lore. They are what matter for our individual games, but "official" comes from the company, not those that play it.

That is a fundamental misunderstanding of what a game is IMO. The only thing official about a game is what is played, not lore written in a book. Lore can be changed as many people are writing and controlling it, but a home game is finite and concrete. It is more official than the words in a book or online that are subject to change. Again, this is not a novel, it is a game. Additionally, at some point, in the TSR era I believe, the powers that be said all D&D home games are part of the D&D multiverse, thus officially making home games official.

 

[Hexmage-EN]

.Lore in any book does not matter. Because the MOMENT one of our players in one of our games goes out and... kills Drizzt... that Grand Theory no longer applies. In our game, Drizzt is dead. And while other people might scream from the mountaintops "No! He's not dead! He's not! What happens in your world isn't the REAL LORE! The OFFICIAL LORE says he is still alive! Bob Salvatore is still writing books about him! Drizzt lives!!!"... I'll just shrug my shoulders and say "Sure... in THAT PART of the D&D Multiverse, Drizzt Do'Urden is alive. In MY part of the Multiverse, he is worm food."

This shows that the 3E and 4E way of handling things was superior and more in-line with how many DMs run things.

5E apparently wants DMs to stick to the default 5E take on a single unified set of planes and gods and stick all settings in it (altering what made those worlds unique to accommodate this homogenizing project), and based on the references to a First World and even normal dragons having aspects in other campaign settings in the upcoming Treasury of Dragons book I think the reason behind this is because they want to encourage DMs to run more campaigns that take place in multiple worlds (and therefore sell more setting books detailing those worlds).

 

[PsyzhranV2]

How? How is it affecting anything? Are you being forced to change your game because the books say this one thing? Did this force Keith Baker to write in the Rising of the Last War book "Here is the Eberron cosmology, but don't worry about it and just ignore it because it's now nothing more than a curiosity that is meaningless to Eberron since the cosmology in the DMG takes precedence over everything"?

Nothing in these books that are being written is affecting anything anywhere... except in the minds of that small select band of players who for whatever reason seem to need to have this one Grand Theory of Everything where every single bit of lore ever written is all true and immutable and is one single comprehensive lore "thing". If it's written in a book, then it's real, and we have no say in the matter. Even if we don't like what was written.

But for the other 99.99% of us? We just don't care. Lore in any book does not matter. Because the MOMENT one of our players in one of our games goes out and... kills Drizzt... that Grand Theory no longer applies. In our game, Drizzt is dead. And while other people might scream from the mountaintops "No! He's not dead! He's not! What happens in your world isn't the REAL LORE! The OFFICIAL LORE says he is still alive! Bob Salvatore is still writing books about him! Drizzt lives!!!"... I'll just shrug my shoulders and say "Sure... in THAT PART of the D&D Multiverse, Drizzt Do'Urden is alive. In MY part of the Multiverse, he is worm food."

And there ain't nothing no one can say to change that fact.

It's perfectly valid to criticize the trajectory a story is taking, no matter the medium. You don't get to slag us off for not liking the way a creator is taking their property just because you wrote your own fanfic. Now, some reasons to criticize a brand are more valid than others, sure; if somebody's getting upset at better representation in a property and using "THE LORE" as a disingenuous cover to hurl racist and sexist abuse at other fans and at the creators, they can go die in a fire. But I'd hope that you'd recognize that at least some of us aren't doing that and that we are actually arguing in good faith. Just as the official lore doesn't affect your home game, your home game doesn't affect the official lore. The two are separate spheres, and I'd argue it isn't rhetorically sound to bring up your homebrew when what we're disputing is what is presented in official published material.

 

[Bolares]

5E apparently wants DMs to stick to the default 5E take on the multiverse and stick all settings in it

Acording to what exactly? The DMG is VERY clear when saying the great wheel is not mandatory.

 

[DEFCON 1]

It's perfectly valid to criticize the trajectory a story is taking, no matter the medium. You don't get to slag us off for not liking the way a creator is taking their property just because you wrote your own fanfic. Now, some reasons to criticize a brand are more valid than others, sure; if somebody's getting upset at better representation in a property and using "THE LORE" as a disingenuous cover to hurl racist and sexist abuse at other fans and at the creators, they can go die in a fire. But I'd hope that you'd recognize that at least some of us aren't doing that and that we are actually arguing in good faith. Just as the official lore doesn't affect your home game, your home game doesn't affect the official lore. The two are separate spheres, and I'd argue it isn't rhetorically sound to bring up your homebrew when what we're disputing is what is presented in official published material.

Oh, I know you are arguing in good faith. Which is lovely and why what you're saying doesn't bother me. I just think your good faith argument isn't very strong. Because... as I and others have said in previous posts... in my opinion "official lore" is ultimately a meaningless turn of phrase. Not when it was different in a previous book, and will be different again in a follow-up book. So to care so much about THIS book is nothing I think you, I, or anyone should ultimately give a fig about.

If you do, cool. Go right ahead. But that doesn't shield you from the rest of us commenting here that we think you are wrong. You're telling me you think I am wrong, and I'm fine with that. So I hope the road goes both ways.

 

[Mirtek]

That is a fundamental misunderstanding of what a game is IMO.

I wouldn't call it a misunderstanding but rather a different view of what D&D is about. For me D&D was always it's story. I only followed D&D by reading it's novel for years before I played my first P&P and since years when I played my last P&P (around the time Curse of Strahd was released).

When I played a game of FR, I always only saw it as taking a snapshot of the official canon at that point, play with it for a while and then letting this borrowed bubble burst once the game was done. Next campaign would jump off from the then current canon at that time.

So for me it's way more important how WotC sees the official canon then whatever happens in my current game. Because that's how I will experience the story going forward with the next novel and splatbook

 

[Bolares]

I prefer the Eberron take on RPG novels. None of them are canon, but could be good ideas for campaigns and nice ways to present interesting NPCs.